Dodgers Team News

Dodgers News: Clayton Kershaw Suffers First Infraction with New Rules

Dodgers LHP Clayton Kershaw took the mound for his second outing of the spring on Thursday against the Texas Rangers. He pitched fairly well, going 4.1 innings and allowing five hits, two runs and striking out four batters. However, in Kershaw’s second start of spring, he suffered his first pitch clock violation. Or as he likes to call it, “shot clock violation,” (per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register).

The violation came in the third, after Kershaw wasn’t ready to go to throw the first pitch of the inning. The first batter’s count started at 1-0.

After the game, though, Kershaw spoke to the media, and said this violation was a good learning experience because he didn’t actually know the rule.

The violation was assessed when Kershaw threw a warmup pitch after the between-innings clocked had reached 30 seconds. Kershaw didn’t that rule, but it’s safe to assume he won’t have a violation like that again for the rest of the year — that’s what spring training is for.

“I didn’t know that one,” Kershaw said. So, good to know.”

While the pitch clock is definitely a huge adjustment for everyone, it has to be a little more of a struggle for someone like Kershaw, who made his MLB debut way back in 2008. However, he’s seemed to be comfortable working faster thus far, and only suffered an infraction because he didn’t know the rule.

Kershaw is likely to make one more start of spring before being ready to go for his first start of the season, whenever that comes. He threw 75 pitches on Thursday, so that’s a good indication of where his ramp up is ahead of Opening Day.

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Noah Camras

Noah is an Editor for Dodgers Nation. He graduated from USC in 2022 with a B.A. in Journalism and minor in Sports Media Studies. He's been a Dodger fan his whole life, and his all-time favorite Dodgers are Matt Kemp and Russell Martin.

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